Mage tactics
General Tactics Some things to remember in general about the Mage: * Frost Nova has a chance to break on damage, making it significantly less useful in groups. Also, this fact can make Permafrost indespensable to the Frost Mage. * Mages don't have many ways to get mana back once they are in combat. Mana Gems, Evocation, Potions and terribly slow Spirit regeneration make up every single way a Mage can ever get mana back in combat. The Spirit regeneration also only activates 5 seconds after the last spell was cast. Note that after casting Arcane Missiles, or Blizzard, your mana regeneration will immediately kick in, due to the instant cast channeling nature of these spells. This means Mages need to be very careful about keeping as much mana as possible in their reserves. If a mob jumps you and you have only 5% of your mana pool left, you will have to use one of the methods above to get your mana back to be able to fight it. If you don't have any of the methods available to you listed above (Spirit regen doesn't count), then you are screwed: Wait until you can Polymorph the enemy and run away. * Mages and Priests work extremely well together, being able to absolutely decimate an opposing group of enemies with the combination of Flamestrike, Instant Arcane Explosion, and Priest healing. Try this combo out for yourself, I guarantee you won't be unimpressed ;). Also, don't forget a Power Word: Shield by Priest on the Mage before the Mage starts blasting away or if a mob gets in melee range. This saves the Mage mana for damage dealing and reduces need for a Mana Shield. Talent Specialization & Tactics Mage tactics are heavily dependant on your level and talents. As a mage gets into the 20s, they will start to acquire a few more tools for surviving solo, and for accelerating the pace of combat within a group. Talent specialization has a large impact on mage tactics as early as level 10. Below each tree will be examined and compared to the others. Arcane Mastery Even in the teens, Arcane Talents can make fights easier to survive, and help keep a mage's mana supply higher. Five ranks in Improved Arcane Missiles right off the bat will allow a mage to cast Arcane Missiles uninterrupted, especially useful for point blank situations, when the mage is taking damage from one or more targets. Even most single enemies will require more damage than a mage can deal to them with ranged spells like Fireball, before they arrive in melee range--this talent ensures that the fight will end, no channeling required. Arcane Concentration becomes handy in longer fights, especially in groups within an Instanced Dungeon. Casting rapid-fire spells such as Scorch will raise a mage's chances of activating Clearcasting, letting them unleash a higher-mana spell such as Fireball or even Pyroblast completely free of cost. Evocation is another group friendly talent, and will help a mage fall back and recharge their entire mana supply when the situation is getting hairy. It is a channeled spell, so the mage will need to be untouched and standing still to receive the full benefit. In combat situations where one may be hit, it is recommended to activate Mana Shield before using this spell, in order to not be interrupted while channeling. It should ne noted that this is one of the few ways for Mages to get mana back in combat, along with Mana Gems and Potions. Improved Arcane Explosion is a favorite of many high level mages, as it allows for the already quick Arcane Explosion to cast even faster. With 5 ranks, the AOE spell will no longer be interruptible, allowing the mage to continue his barrage even if he's being attacked by several enemies (which tends to happen when AOEs are used). Note that due to the global two-second recast timer, the DPS of Instant Arcane Explosion does not become absurdly huge due to this talent. This talent is superb, and probably the second most useful in PvP after Improved Counterspell. For the top-end mage, Arcane Focus may be desired, to allow his Arcane spells like Arcane Missiles to scratch raid monsters where other spells may fail. Arcane Subtlety may be a good choice for a mage absolutely in love with Arcane Explosion. Arcane Power is the trump card of the Arcane mage, allowing him or her to put out an insane amount of damage over 15 seconds. With PoM and Pyroblast, Fireblast, and Improved Arcane Explosion, an Arcane Mage can probably reach the greatest damage potential for 15 seconds currently in the game for any class. However, this usually leaves the mage totally burned out, considering the abrasive mana cost of the power. Fire Mastery Fire is a great way to deal insane amounts of damage. Talents like Fire Power, Critical Mass, Ignite, and finally the ultimate Tier 7 Talent Combustion, can definitely be at least compared to the damage potential of Arcane Power at the end of the Arcane tree. The downside is it lacks spells like Arcane Missiles and Arcane Explosion and their corresponding talents that make them uninterruptible, allowing an Arcane mage to carry on blasting where a Fire mage might be too busy getting smacked around to get his spells cast. This matters quite a bit in high end group scenarios, where parts of an Instanced Dungeon may require someone to destroy a huge number of weaker foes as quickly as possible. These talents are also extremely important in PvP, as instants and uninterupability are of the utmost importance. Thus, it is very rare that any mage goes without these talents in Arcane, and one can be primarily in fire with a secondary in arcane to achieve this. It is due to this that some of the most popular builds for mage include 30 fire 21 Arcane, 33 Fire 18 Arcane, and 33 Frost 18 Arcane. Fire makes a strong line for solo play and intelligent group play. Impact is a highly desired low-level talent. When shooting monsters at range with Fireball the mage has a chance to stop the incoming beast long enough to toss yet another Fireball at it, increasing the odds that the fight will end before the enemy draws near enough to melee with the mage. Impact is also nice in groups, especially with rapid fire spells like Scorch, where your chances of landing the stun are even higher. Two seconds of an enemy standing there stunned instead of hitting the mage's friends could be the difference between life and death. It can be extremely nice with Blast Wave, considering you may be AEing 10+ enemies at a time. Flame Throwing is yet another soloist's choice for giving them the extra edge over enemies, and ending their lives before they get within range to fight back. This is a great talent to develop for fighting other spell-casters. If you stay at your maximum range to cast your longest-ranged fire spells (Pyroblast is best), the enemy spellcaster is out of their range, and will spend time running into range that you can land 2 spells before they've cast 1. For PvP, it is extremely useful for Fire builds that include at least 21 arcane, since you can PoM Pyroblast, and launch it at a running enemy from 42 yards away. Improved Fireball also helps in this regard, but it is more notable because it is a prerequisite for the talent Pyroblast. It is also however a very nice DPS increase for your fireball. Pyroblast is the highest Damage per Mana single target damage spell. Its DPS is fairly underwhelming however, and the cast time is extremely prohibitive. So we see it has a few uses: First, when PoM is activated, it becomes the most damaging instant cast spell a mage can ever have. Some very popular mage builds are built around this combination: 31 Arcane 20 Fire, and 30 Fire 21 Arcane. It is also very useful when combusted, since when Pyroblast crits it adds a huge Ignite bonus. Finally, it is useful as an opener in any situation without either of these, whether it be against a Polymorphed opponent in PvP, or to pull with in PvE. Burning Soul is a very handy talent for the dedicated Fire mage, allowing them to channel much better when getting hit. Used in combination with the very fast Scorch spell, a Fire mage may not need to rely on Arcane Missiles in combination with the Improved Arcane Missiles talent to kill his enemy in melee range. Note that a much smaller chance of being interrupted is still not as good as no chance of being interrupted, something a mage becomes keenly aware of when being attacked by 4 or 5 things. Most mages find 2 points in this skill to be enough, as the third only adds 15%. Blast Wave is another talent spell, and like Pyroblast, its great power is balanced by its recast timer. Blast Wave is instant, AOE, and dazes each enemy while dealing a large amount of damage to each. For the soloist, the 6 second daze may help control multiple opponents much like Frost Nova does, while the group mage will appreciate the ability to have more burst damage against a lot of foes, especially since it is uninterruptible. It is an extremely powerful AE when combined with Ignite, Combustion, and Impact. Combustion is the last Fire Talent in the tree, and is a guaranteed critical every 5 minutes. It has one very obvious use: combination with Pyroblast or Blast Wave for a truly huge nuke, when the times call for one. Most Fire Mages feel that the times usually call for one every 5 minutes or so. Improved Scorch is a talent that most mages find worthless. However, for PvE purposes, it does have some worth. By alternating Fireballs and Improved Scorches, one can achieve extremely worthwhile Damage per Mana. However, while doing this, your Arcane Concentration percentage will be reduced considerabily, which may in the end leave it just as useless as most people think it is. The other Fire Talents are rather self-explanatory, Critical Mass and Firepower along with Incinerate give the mage a very strong reason to never cast anything but a fire spell, if he can help it. Combined with Ignite these crticial talents are extremely useful, amounting to roughly a 1.10% damage increase per percentage chance to crit. An impressive situation-specific tactic for partnering with a single tank player is to let the tank draw a decent amount of aggro from multiple mobs (up to 6 or so that are a couple levels below you - more than that and you will be in trouble). Stand as far away as you can and unleash a Flamestrike on them all. If the mobs are still on the tank, repeat. The mobs will eventually aggro to you. As they are coming, cast another Flamestrike (using Combustion if you can) on the ground at your feet in front of yourself. The timing will be such that the mobs will arrive just in time to be toasted and start burning. A Blast Wave will usually finish them off. This was amazing in Gnomeregan where the plane crews have a single elite and many regular mobs. Using this tactic, my mage and a single paladin were able to drop an entire crew (except elite) in about 10 or 15 seconds. Frost Mastery Frost is an interesting choice for a mage, as he will have to accept that he cannot match the constant damage power of the Fire Mage, nor the burst destruction capability of the Arcane Mage. Frost is for those that are either in love with the Blizzard spell, or like to keep things as calm and under control as possible. The chill effect enhancements and other utilities of the Frost line ensure that a Frost Mage won't have any enemies fleeing from the fight. This is often argued to be only handy in PvP, but it can keep a group safer within an Instanced Dungeon, as the mage slows the pace of movement things tend to stay a bit more organized. Permafrost, Winter's Chill, Improved Blizzard, and Improved Frost Nova all help keep the mage's enemies moving at a nice, slow pace. The greatest downside of Blizzard is that it is a channeled spell, so taking damage destroys its usefulness. With Improved Blizzard and those other talents the mage has a better chance at landing the whole 8 seconds of damage, even if he enrages a few enemies that haven't been tagged by the rest of the group. Toss Shatter into the mix, and the Frost Mage's critical strikes will occur much more frequently, especially with frequent applications of Frost Nova to the enemies the mage is facing. Combine this with Ice Shards and Frostbite, and the Frost Mage's damage will become very respectable, keeping him competitive with the Fire Mage. Ice Block is slightly useful in groups when the mage is being mobbed by a lot of monsters he probably shouldn't have used Blizzard on, but it is not worth much solo, as it locks the mage in place, thus preventing him from fleeing. Ice Barrier is much more handy, as it works exactly like the Priest spell Power Word: Shield, soaking up damage and allowing you to cast without interruption. All of the sudden another Blizzard can get thrown down when things are going sour in the mage's group, slowing the monsters down, and perhaps killing a few. Notes on Talent Selection Unless you always play with friends, it is smart choice to specialize your mage to be the best soloist possible in the early levels, when you'll almost always be going it alone. As you reach the higher levels, retraining your talents to be more useful to groups may be wise. A smart combination of Fire and Arcane, or Frost and Arcane, may give your mage the most versatility. Arcane Explosion or Arcane Missiles may just be the only thing you can use in some places with Fire or Frost resistant monsters, so keep that in mind. If you have a guild, find out what your other mages are specializing in at the higher levels. It would be silly for everyone to be a Fire mage when the guild is trying to win something like the Onyxia raid, when everything around is Fire resistant! In general, you should try to focus on talents that exemplify your preferred playing style. If you enjoy being a high-damage mage capable of destroying any monster you put your touch to, then you should focus on Fire talents and give yourself skills like Flamethrower, Pyroblast, Impact, and Ignition, all of which have the potential for doing large amounts of damage and burn over time. Impact at its maximum is incredibly valuable, as anything you can do to stun monsters for a few seconds is precious, and can mean the difference between life and death in certain cases. Pyroblast is the most amount of damage you can do in a single hit, so it makes a great "pull" tactic. With maximum Flamethrowing, your Fireball and Pyroblast spells can be used at 41 yards, which is more range than just about anything else in the game. A Pyroblast is a great way to start off a fight, since it has a 1 minute cooldown and a decent mana cost. The damage done can be enough to take any monster down a few notches, which gives you time and ability to prepare other damaging or affecting spells like Fireballs, Frostbolts, and whatever else you like. If you prefer group playing styles, where you would rather be a support character than a fire-throwing storm of doom, then you might want to consider what was mentioned above- Frost and/or Arcane. Although nothing can dish out as much damage as a well-trained Fire mage, Frost spells can be incredibly useful for controlling the battles a little bit better. Frost Nova is easily one of the most useful spells the mage can get, as it gives you the ability to instantly freeze any targets in a 10 yard radius from moving, which can give a beleaguered mage a running start. In a group situation, you can save your local tank (Paladin or Warrior) from some problems by freezing all the monsters chasing after him, giving you and other potentially ranged members of your group time to get a few good shots, or even just run out of there as fast as you can. Cone of Cold and Frostbolt are also helpful for slowing down mobs as they chase after you, which can also give your group members time to get away or regroup to launch an effective counterattack. Another neat effect of frost spells that is often overlooked comes to the end of battle. Many monsters, when brought down to a small fraction of their health left, will try to run. In Instances and Dungeons where there are a lot of high-level aggressive monsters, a fleeing mob can easily summon others (the Stockades and Deadmines come to mind, where the Defias run and wake up just about every other mob within 50 yards). In this case, what was an easy battle before may just be come the fight of your life, as your group may find themselves in the middle of more than eight or nine creatures of often equal or greater level. Preventing this is part of the job for the mages and ranged members of the group, since the Warriors and Paladins will have to run to catch up with them, which may not be in time, whereas the mages have spells that have low casting times (like Scorch, which does minor damage but has a fixed 1.5 sec casting time) or Instant Casts (like Fireblast). Using Frostbolt and other frost spells as your main tactic will keep them more or less permanently in a state of slowness- movement speed reductions are always helpful for killing off stragglers and runners before they turn the battle into a rout. The talents along the Frost line certainly add to this, by allowing you to give your chill effects greater strength and duration. Talents can be reconfigured by a trainer for 1 gold piece to begin with. You can "unlearn" all of your talents and reconfigure them as you wish. However, doing this often will leave you very poor, considering that the price raises with every Re-Specialization, up to a max of 50 gold. While you are choosing talents, it is better to focus on a certain line of the three (Fire, Frost, or Arcane) and dive into it with devotion than spread yourself too thin and find that your skills aren't as powerful as they should be. Reconfiguring should be saved for later levels, when you find that maybe you made some choices early on that you wish to change to make yourself better for playing the way you want to. Levelling up is a growing and learning experience, and you will find that your tactics and preferred methods of playing the mage may also change as you level up. It is at this stage that reconfiguring becomes a boon to change your setup from Solo Firebombing Mage of Doom That Dies In Melee to Powerful Group Controller and Gunner Mage. It all comes down to your preference and tactics. --Froderick See Also Some good info at the official WoW forums: *A Guide to Mage Talent Specs (Revised 03/17) =Working with Other Classes= Things Mages want Non-Mages to know # Do not attack the sheep. # If you are in my group and I suddenly run past you, turn around and attack what's chasing me. # If you have a choice of two targets in front of you, and one of them has their feet frozen in ice, hit the other one. Frozen targets will remain immobilized for up to 30 secs unless they are attacked. # If you want AoE, don't run away after the pull, or the flamestrike will miss. # AoE means non elites. Keep the elites busy. Things Non-Mages want Mages to know # Say when you are out of mana and need to recharge. Something like a quick "oom" should work. # Call out sheep target before start of battle or during, if possible. Something like, "sheep left", "sheep caster mob", etc. should work. # Keep out of melee range, if possible and move into line of sight if you are getting beat on by a mob. =How to Kill A...= Rogue Keep your mana shield up at all times, but even that might not save you. Every sixth hit you take will crit for 2000+ hp. Get them out of stealth and keep them from restealthing. The dot on fireball and pyroblast are handy for this role. You will absolutely need to sheep them, but beware, they can counter all your tricks (once every 5 minutes, twice if they have preparation up). They can sprint in stealth and when chilled, they can vanish out of frost nova, and they can kick you when you're trying to sheep at point blank range. Once in sheep form and without vanish, they are usually yours to play with. Save your blink for their cheap shot/kidney shot. Try spamming lvl1 arcane explosion if they are stealthed, and your blink is still recharging. Most mages consider rogues an even matchup, usually the one to initiate battle wins Warrior Keeping distance is about all you have to do here. Your tricks are frostbolt, frost nova, cone of cold, blink and maybe blastwave - his tricks are charge(out of combat only), harmstring and intercept. You may blink out of the stun of charge and intercept, so save your blink. You should generally beat a warrior Priest If you get silenced, then it's a shadow priest and you're in big trouble. Resheep them everytime they heal. Attack the shield. Yes, you can bring it down, it's not that powerful. Counterspell a heal if you think you can finish him off while it holds, or you could counterspell their shadow tree and try winning tha mana race. A priest should generally beat you Warlock Have self remove curse hotkeyed, this should be obvious. Try getting close to him, or even behind him to make his spellcasting fail. You'll want to counterspell their shadow tree, and you'll get many chances to do that. His fear is recastable, and won't heal you like poly does. A warlock can easily equal your damage if he's willing to sacrifise soul shards. *'Succubus:' Most warlocks will have this pet out, as it's the most dangerous one. Its seduce is insant cast, recastable, and does not heal you like poly does. If you can get a poly off, you will get seduced - the first of many times, but at least you got his dimnishing started. *'Felhunter:' You might poly, but don't expect it to hold for long. The felhunter can unpoly him, debuff you, and counterspell you. Going all out on the warlock is what you should do. *'Imp:' This is the only pet you should consider to kill, as it does annoying damage and goes down fast. *'Voidwalker:' You can just ignore it. Succubus and felhunter will probably get you killed, while the other two will probably get the warlock killed. Mage Contrary to the popular belief, victory against a mage is not a matter of skill. It's a matter of your build, and of the lucky resists on polymorph or counterspell. Druid Having dampen magic is an obvious must against any caster class, but even more so against the druid, so that you might actually last a while against his moonfire. To summarize it, you can't polymorph him, you can't frostnova him, he can heal, he has moonfire to kill you, and he has instantcast travelform to hunt you down. It's too late to run when in battle, you should just mount up and leave when you see one. If you have to fight anyway, try bringing down until he uses up his instant heal, bring him down again, counterspell his heal, and then, only then use your arcane power PoM pyroblast and fireblast. Any half decent druid should kill you. Hunter Don't feel safe, a hunter can actually out damage you. You should polymorph the pet just in case, blink into his deadzone and stay there. Frost nova helps a lot with this. Once you killed him, make sure you killed him and he isn't just feigning death. The hunter saw you coming on his minimap, and has probably laid a trap somewhere. You don't want to step on that, try guessing where it is and blink over it. You should generally beat a hunter Paladin Keep your distance. His only way of stopping you is his stun, one that you can blink out of. He should never even hit you. Only one of the paladin's two shields stop spells, and he also has lay on hands, that means he has three lives. Just resheep everytime he heals himself to full. You should generally beat a paladin. Shaman He is the same as the druid, but frost nova and polymorph work this time. The same tactic shouold be used: wait for instant heal, resheep, counterspell heal, and try to finish him. You'll want to keep your distance, out of the range of his earthbind totem if possible. You're free to use blink whenever you want unless he's a tauren, who can stun you. His grounding totem will absorb your polymorph, you'll have to make it disappear first (spell damage on the totem or the shaman). Take your time to wand the totems once he's sheeped. He will spam earthshock at you, that means your fireballs will never fly. Use scorch, and fire a lvl1 frostbolt when you're hit by an earthshock. Any half decent shaman should beat you. =How to Help A...= Rogue In case of sap-sheep pulls, learn the way he saps, and time your polymorph to happen as soon as posible after it. (unless he has improved sap that is) Warrior Let him build aggro first, don't make him use his taunt right at the begining. Priest You're probbaly going to stand next to him, in the last row. If he ever gets aggro from healing, you should frost nova the mobs going for him, to give the warrior some time in retaking aggro. If the warrior can't do anything about it, take aggro yourself and draw them away. He is more important than you. You can always be revived, but he probably can't. Warlock He's going to ask you for water, and he's going to give you a healthstone for it. Remind him to part 2 should he forget. If you feel nice, give an Arcane Intellect buff as well. Mage Druid Hunter Paladin You're going to love working with paladins, their concentration aura gives 35% chance for your spells to be uninterruptable, that's 100% with your burning soul talent.They can also grant you their second shield, it protects you from all physical damage, but you can still cast all the way. That's very handy when AoEing. Blessing of salvation reduces your aggro, welcome to the life of the trigger-happy-yet-never-hit-mage. Palas can't keep up with your aggro, so behave yourself if there isn't a regular tank around. Shaman Category:Mages Category:Tactics Category:Stubs